Orlando Travel: Things To Do Without Theme Parks

Here’s how to ensure an enjoyable vacation: Find the things that you would gravitate towards if you lived in that destination. Then amp it up for the week. So if you’re a comic book collector, seek out hole-in-the-wall comic shops. If you love hikes, finding awe-inspiring trails. If microbrews are your thing, tour the local microbreweries. It’s no wonder that people get burnt out on vacations of endless lines and crowds. Who seeks that out in their normal, everyday life?

My favorite trips include lots of sun and nature, vegan meals aplenty, and shopping for unique groceries and kitchen items. One of the best surprises about being vegan while traveling is the way that it’s taken me to areas I might not have sought out if I was sticking with chain restaurants and the usual tourist scene. I like getting a glimpse of a local’s viewpoint, and unearthing some hidden treasures that wouldn’t necessarily be on a pamphlet in the hotel lobby.

Orlando Travel

With those things in mind, here are some of my favorite things to do in Orlando (that don’t involve theme parks)…

Nile Ethiopian Restaurant

While Nile Ethiopian Restaurant is located in one of the more touristy areas of Orlando with gobs of traffic and neon lights, this unassuming restaurant in a strip mall is worth seeking out. With semi-private huts for groups or standard dining tables in the main room, it’s a wonderful place for getting a wide platter of injera, smattered with colorful wots (stews). It’s not a vegetarian or vegan restaurant, but they have lots of vegan options. We’d visited Nile on a prior trip and were eager to revisit it again.

The sambusa appetizer (below) is filled with lentils, green peppers, and onions. It’s a tasty start to the meal. The crust is light and flaky and has the texture of fried rice paper.

I like to get the vegetarian Taste of Nile platter, which is a very generous amount for two. (I think we could have invited at least one or two more people over, and there still would have been plenty.) It comes with cabbage, red lentils, split peas, collard greens, shiro azifa, and tomato fitfit.

I love when Ethiopian restaurants have a dish that sets them apart from others. The one at Nile that does it is their cold lentil salad, which is heavily laced with horseradish. It has a clean-your-nose-out bite that is a welcome surprise to balance the other savory wots on the platter.

The injera is not as dark and teff-heavy as some injera I’ve tried, making it on the milder and more muted side. I prefer a stronger-tasting injera, but otherwise it was fresh and pliable.

The service is very warm and friendly. It’s one of those places that makes me wish I was a local, so that I could be a regular.

East End Market

East End Market is a two-story structure with dozens of different merchants sharing the space. There is a working garden in front of the building. The lower half of the building is a large open room with shops, market areas with produce and freshly baked bread, and restaurants. (For my Southern California readers, it’s reminiscent of The Market at Santa Monica Place.)

The upper half features a variety of standalone stores, including Bookmark It. This bookstore features local authors and books on the local food movement.

One of the restaurants on the main floor is Skyebird, a raw restaurant and juice bar. They have salads in mason jars for people on the go or in bowls for those who want to linger at their long countertop dining area.

Their taco salads are fresh and filling with romaine, raw taco meat made from nuts or seeds, pico de gallo, and a cashew sour cream that tastes very similar to the cashew dressing that I make at home.

Leu Gardens

To immerse yourself in beauty, a relaxing place to spend an afternoon is Leu Gardens. With 50 acres of gardens, a tropical garden, rose garden, and more, it would be hard to see it all.

It’s amazing to see tropical fruits like papayas growing, and to walk freely through the expansive gardens. They have rotating artwork. When we were there they had human-sized frog sculptures located throughout the gardens called Ribbit the Exhibit.

It’s free to visit Leu Gardens the first Monday of every month.

The British Shoppe

If you’re looking for Doctor Who magnets, teapots, and Jammie Dodgers, you’ve come to the right place. The British Shoppe is a small store with an eclectic collection of British goods, including canned vegetarian haggis. (Only $11 a can! Yikes!)

Lake Eola

This beautiful park is one of my favorite places in the entirety of Orlando. Lake Eola Park is home to a variety of birds, including a large population of swans. The Walt Disney Ampitheater overlooks the water. There are always runners jogging the perimeter of the lake, and it’s a relaxing place to take a leisurely stroll.

There’s a farmers market every Sunday with food, crafts, and live music. Plus, on the 2nd Thursday of every month, there’s a wine and art walk nearby that I’d love to check out sometime.

You can rent four-person swan boats for $15/half hour and paddle around the lake. It was drizzling when we toddled around the water, but it didn’t dampen the view.

Dandelion Communitea Cafe, a delightful vegetarian restaurant, is also a pleasant mile walk away. To read more about Dandelion, check out this post!

Comments

You sure do always suss out some fun/intriguing/beautiful/tasty places on your travels! We love to do the same thing, but don't get as many opportunities as you do, so it's wonderful to get to tag along with you via your blog!
LOVE the picture of David posing for his portrait :-) and the swan boats are delightful! Remind me of the ones in Boston Common (which are about to be buried beneath tons of snow, poor things!)

Thank you, Laurie! I'm glad to have you along vicariously! :D
I love those swan boats too. They make paddling around the lake exponentially that much more fun. I've never been to Boston, but hopefully someday… preferably when the boats AREN'T covered in snow!

Honestly, I've never been to Orlando except to visit a theme park, and that would be exactly three times! My parents used to live in South Florida, but now that they're both gone, we don't get there as much as we used to. You've made Orlando sound like much more appealing then I'd imagined, with the Ethiopian restaurant adding greatly to its charms, though they need to get some all-teff injera. :) And bookstores are always a magnet for us. Thanks for all the info, as we may find ourselves there again with our grandkids!

I think you would enjoy it, Andrea! So many of our friends are down on Orlando, but I think it's because they stick to the amusement parks and other touristy areas. I love a day at Disney World, but there's a lot more to the Orlando area than just the parks. There would be things for the grandkids and for you too! :D

When I hear 'Orlando' the first thing that comes to mind is it being the home town of pioneering 80's metal band 'Death'. I'd be all over seeing if there is still a healthy metal scene there - also, like you said - comic stores & book stores, espresso instead of microbreweries, totally hit up the Nile! always vegan food hunting, hikes and galleries. Being a very different climate from where I live, it would be a really interesting place to visit sans theme park.

I loved these posts about Orlando and Winter Park! My husband and I got married in Winter Park and our guests still say that our cake from Raphsodic was the best wedding cake they ever had. We had a small reception in the vault at the Wine Room on Park Ave., and they created phenomenal vegan options for me (I was the only vegan). We recently moved back to the cold, cold, north and these posts brought back some great memories!